Warlords of Draenor Press Events - Gameplay Footage and Spoilers
Blizzard organized a couple of press tours in Europe and Korea and interesting info about the new expansion is starting to appear on the web.

I played a gnome warrior in the Shadowmoon Valley, the Alliance starting zone. After about 5 hours of /played and 80 quests I reached the end of the zone and Level 92.

At level 91, I had 63k health as a Tank.

Monsters had around 100k health.

I was dealing around 1k to 5k damage on normal hits. Up to 10k critical damage for some abilities (Shield Slam).

It takes 597k XP to go from level 90 to level 91 and 640k xp to go from level 91 to 92.

Quests rewards were between 10k and 15k xp. Up to 20k for the difficult ones.

A new quest type is available: the "Bonus Objectives". When you walk around a zone, new objectives might appear randomly in your quest list. Completing the objectives will reward you with extra experience, leaving the area will drop the quest.

Shadowmoon Valley

Shadowmoon Valley is composed of lush green plains lit by the moonlight. It has a very peaceful feeling. The glades and forests are amazing and very colorful. You will find Naarus, Draeneis cities, and Iron Horde strongholds in the zone.

The Alliance starting zone seems pretty much finished. Lots of details, impressive vegetation, and a lot of different monsters.

I found a lot of monsters from The Burning Crusade that have been updated: Talbuks, Nether rays, Turtles, Larvas, Boars, Sporebats, Wolves, Bees. The new Talbuks and Sporebats models are EPIC.

Ner'zhul is the principal antagonist of the zone.

The zone ends with a scenario that I couldn't test because it wasn't available. It was called "Grommar's Purge" (Note: roughly translated)

I found the zone really well made. The vast plains and colorful glades immerse you entirely in the game. The scenery is new and doesn't give you a feeling of deja vu (except for some monsters, but it's not really shocking).

Misc

The new race models are great (I could also create a female dwarf). The facial expressions are awesome!

The new soundtrack is also very good.

When asked about the beta, Ion Hazzikostas answered : SoonTM.

SPOILER The zone ends with a pretty huge storyline twist, only click the line below if you do not care about spoilers. You should probably stay away from the comments of this news as well.

Ner'zhul uses an evil force, the Void Terror. At the end of the zone, you fight Ner'zhul and he manages to corrupt a Naaru into a "Dark Naaru". To purify the Naaru, Velen sacrifices himself and dies. This is a pretty huge plot twist and his death will be part of a cinematic at the end of the quest. It is followed by a giant battle. You join Maraad (freed from Ner'zhul earlier) to fight the Iron Horde.

Warlords of Draenor Gameplay FootageInven (Korean website) posted 3 videos of actual Warlords of Draenor footage on their Youtube channel. You can see a couple new things in these videos, including:

One last rant from me but wouldnt it make more sense to leave the Orc and Draenie models as they are for now on Draenor and just give the players the updated versions because then it gives the impression of past ugly orcs and draenies, think about it if we went back in time to cavemen we would see huge monobrowed ugly looking ape men,where as now were all handsome devils (well mostly there is some knuckle draggers still out there) i just think it makes more sense as thats what the orcs and drans WOULD have looked like back then,not what they technically "evolved" into.

Speak with any Draenei in current WoD and they will answer: the legion will fall. God they havent encountered the legion for millennia and the iron horde is tearing them apart..this must be fixed

One last rant from me but wouldnt it make more sense to leave the Orc and Draenie models as they are for now on Draenor and just give the players the updated versions because then it gives the impression of past ugly orcs and draenies, think about it if we went back in time to cavemen we would see huge monobrowed ugly looking ape men,where as now were all handsome devils (well mostly there is some knuckle draggers still out there) i just think it makes more sense as thats what the orcs and drans WOULD have looked like back then,not what they technically "evolved" into.

Are you actually suggesting the playable races have canonically evolved from the old models into the new ones?

Dayum that guy really doesnt know how to play warcraft,at least if your going to let people preview it get someone that knows how to play. I have had a rogue main since TBC and that guy using his rogue made me cringe badly,i know hes only testing it but still jeez!

Also correct me if im wrong as i havent read the books yet but didnt thrall get his armour n hammer on azeroth?

One last rant from me but wouldnt it make more sense to leave the Orc and Draenie models as they are for now on Draenor and just give the players the updated versions because then it gives the impression of past ugly orcs and draenies, think about it if we went back in time to cavemen we would see huge monobrowed ugly looking ape men,where as now were all handsome devils (well mostly there is some knuckle draggers still out there) i just think it makes more sense as thats what the orcs and drans WOULD have looked like back then,not what they technically "evolved" into.

Again.... WE ARE NOT traveling BACK IN TIME. It is just another timeline, so there is no additional evolution thet we had and they did not. Just helping out =P

Dayum that guy really doesnt know how to play warcraft,at least if your going to let people preview it get someone that knows how to play. I have had a rogue main since TBC and that guy using his rogue made me cringe badly,i know hes only testing it but still jeez!

Also correct me if im wrong as i havent read the books yet but didnt thrall get his armour n hammer on azeroth?

One last rant from me but wouldnt it make more sense to leave the Orc and Draenie models as they are for now on Draenor and just give the players the updated versions because then it gives the impression of past ugly orcs and draenies, think about it if we went back in time to cavemen we would see huge monobrowed ugly looking ape men,where as now were all handsome devils (well mostly there is some knuckle draggers still out there) i just think it makes more sense as thats what the orcs and drans WOULD have looked like back then,not what they technically "evolved" into.

I don't believe the intention was for this person to record it and upload it. I think this was more of a leak of sorts so they didn't specifically choose someone to record it.

Cavemen might be mongoloids, but they don't have low res textures, so those aren't really interchangeable thought processes.

Also they aren't making orcs, or any race for that matter more evolved, they are just making them look more like what they originally envisioned that was impossible with previous tech.

They haven't evolved in this time anyways, its been like 50 years or something like that, think about it, Garrosh's father is there. They aren't going back into prehistory. So no, they wouldn't have looked like that, but they WOULD stick out like a sore thumb and ruin any semblance of immersion if they were the only remaining low texture model in the game.

PS - It is an alternate timeline anyways so current azeroth happenings would have no affect on WoD world, and vice versa.

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Wayne25uk

So explain to me why the IF leader got turned to stone 'behind the scenes' we never saw his ass again (technically)

One last rant from me but wouldnt it make more sense to leave the Orc and Draenie models as they are for now on Draenor and just give the players the updated versions because then it gives the impression of past ugly orcs and draenies, think about it if we went back in time to cavemen we would see huge monobrowed ugly looking ape men,where as now were all handsome devils (well mostly there is some knuckle draggers still out there) i just think it makes more sense as thats what the orcs and drans WOULD have looked like back then,not what they technically "evolved" into.

Neanderthals, the classic archetype of cave men, lived over one hundred thousand years ago, creatures do not evolve over the course of a few hundred years in extreme manners except in a few cases in WoW and those always involve an outside force like Fel Magic. Some people in WoW can live long, but regular Orcs do not live that long and the Draenei faction has not even existed that long. Draenei as a people may have, but if that is the case they would look more like the Eredar people rather than primitive creatures. Orcs would theoretically be smaller in fact since the drinking of Demon Blood made them larger and more physically intimidating. So Draenor Orcs would technically be smaller, but that's a level of detail I don't mind them skipping on since it might hurt the overall feel.

This is an amusing post, mainly because it was more than obvious that the people playing knew the basics of how to play their chosen classes, indicating that they've played before. So, keeping your post in mind, please tell me the difference level 90 boost is going to make..?

New players that boost will still have 10 levels of current content to play through. They will either learn quickly or they'll have an extremely painful leveling experience, and an even worse dungeoning experience. It's not like the lower end of the skill level is sudden going to become worse due to 90 boosts because there are already players who have leveled to 90 and still have no idea what the hell is going on. Why? Because leveling does nothing to help you learn your class.

Not entirely true, if you were DPS or Heals you had that much. Raiding with my Paladin in 10 man ICC I managed to get to 60k HP without Hellscream's Warsong (ICC buff).

They knew the class? loool
Thats why for e.g he spams charge while he is attacking the mob ok...

As a member of the Alliance, the death of the alternative Velen does not worry me at all, in fact quite the opposite: I am glad, because eliminating one of the two copies, the insertion of Draenor in our dimension is more likely (although there would be to eliminate each and every one of the other copies also, something totally impossible...)

However there is one thing that does concern me, and what's more, it infuriates me greatly: Ner'zhul is evil and this time deliberately.

I was hoping to Ner'zhul was redeemed and integrated into the Horde of Azeroth, but it seems that Blizzard enjoys repeating the story over and over again...

Why the hell Blizzard has taken the trouble to "resurrect" the great heroes of the Horde?
To do the same thing? For killing them again?
By us this time? Shameful...